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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28377999">one of these days</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/threefourthstime/pseuds/threefourthstime'>threefourthstime</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Blaseball (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Identity Issues, POV Second Person, Past Character Death, minor unnamed OC who probably dies later</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 00:28:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,915</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28377999</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/threefourthstime/pseuds/threefourthstime</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A week after it all, your coworker grumbles something about crunch time, complaining they only had a few hours to make up the new intern. You think maybe it’s a figure of speech you don’t know, because you’ve been here a full era now, more than that, even, and the only intern around here is you.</p>
<p>(Parker MacMillan IIIII has a rough first day.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>one of these days</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>the T rating is for the swears, but this fic also contains some vaguely-described medical stuff/needles, canon-typical blood, and canon-typical identity issues/memory issues</p>
<p>congratulations reader you are now in #PARTYTIME</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first thing you’re aware of is the scratching noise, digging into your skin each time you try to tune it out. After that comes the ringing in your ears—you have ears?—and the chill of something that’s maybe the floor against maybe your body, and then nonsense static churning behind your eyelids—you know you have those, at least—and only after that comes the crash of a full-body ache, and the burning white points of pain at the base of your skull and at your temples and at your wrist, all of them sort of shuffling around every time you breathe—you’re breathing—you’re breathing, and there’d been something bright bright bright until you couldn’t anymore but there never had been and you’re breathing and—</p>
<p>It’s a bad idea, but you open your eyes.</p>
<p><em>Ow</em>, you think. Most the place you’re in isn’t <em> so </em> bad to look at, but then there’s a big square glowing white against the dark room, and a bunch of little colorful circles blinking beneath it, and looking at that <em> hurts</em>. <em> Shit</em>. Where even are you—what happened?</p>
<p>Uh: okay. That’s...a computer, and there’s someone standing in front of it. There are things beeping, and things making electric whining noises like an old TV, and in the glow from the screens there’s thick dust swirling through the air. There’s a window you can’t quite see out of, though you’re pretty sure it’s dark out, and you can make out some neon lights, maybe? And, uh. You’re on the floor, and it’s cold, and it kinda hurts. So—can you…?—</p>
<p>After a few tries, you figure out how to move your head, although you’re not sure the <em> noises </em>that come with that are great. You look down, trying to figure out what you’re seeing two of and what’s just all blurry. You’re not sure how your arms work, much less all the fiddly parts of your hands, but there’s something shiny sideways at your wrist, and a couple chewed-up-looking tubes running up from that. The stuff in the tubes kind of starts glowing whenever your eyes cross, and it’s dripping down the duct tape and down your curled-up hand onto the floor, viscous and very sticky and red.</p>
<p>You snap your eyes away fast in a way that leaves trails in your vision. The blurry figure has their left hand moving rapidly across a sheet of paper, and their right hand flying across a keyboard, and in their other left hand they’re holding something small that glows a warm, bright yellow, the kind of vivid color that makes the room go all sideways. </p>
<p>They keep looking at the glowy thing every few seconds, but they aren’t looking at you at all.</p>
<p>Something lurches inside of you. You know you have trouble working your physical mouth sometimes—doesn’t matter, what with the wi-fi—but this just feels like someone shoved a terrible cafeteria bread roll in there and set it on fire. You remember you tried biting into one of those bread rolls on your first day, because your coworker had one on their plate and you’d looked at all the options at the salad bar, some of them pulsating and some of them doing the glowy thing squids do when it’s dark, and decided to just have what they were having. You don’t remember that coworker’s face. You don’t remember what the bread roll tasted like.</p>
<p>Right now, you decide, things hurt too much to care. “w,” you say.</p>
<p>“Shit,” says the figure.</p>
<p>You try to turn toward them, but the most you can manage is to move an eye or two up to their face. All the shapes melt together when you do that, but you think their hands have stopped moving. “uh?”</p>
<p>“Go to sleep,” they say very quietly.</p>
<p><em> that’s my line</em>, you think about saying, except what you manage is, “‘s’y n.”</p>
<p>The figure sort of hisses under their breath and starts writing again. Did you do something wrong?—why should you care if you did something wrong, or whatever? this guy answers to you, anyway—is this a test? is everything okay? are they trying to piss you off? is it a test that you’re failing?—</p>
<p>Sleeping sounds like a great idea, actually. Except every scratch of the person’s pen is something scraping around in your brain, every time you remember what a pulse is is something sharp and metallic digging into your shoulder, and it’s really hard to learn to sleep when you can hear stuff <em> squelching around </em> in there. You think you try for maybe five minutes, which is two hours, before you crack one eye open and make sort of a tongue-on-teeth sound at the figure.</p>
<p>They pull a face, their writing hand only hitching for a second. “Don’t look at <em> me</em>,” they half-whisper, or you think they do, in between your thoughts rearranging themselves in and out of the scent of wood ash and deep-fried onion. “I’m not the one who broke the backup incubator.” </p>
<p>Are they talking about you? You don’t remember doing that either. “n’my faul’.”</p>
<p>They kind of laugh, though not the kind with humor in it. “Yeah,” they say. “Guess not.”</p>
<p>Then the thing in their hand gets really, really bright, bright enough you expect it to start burning. The figure freezes, turns halfway toward you, catches your eyes—sort of—and puts a finger up to where most people have mouths, in a <em> shh </em>gesture.</p>
<p>Sure, fine, you guess? You nod—<em>ow shit—</em>and bite your tongue hard enough it tastes funny. And then, um, and then—</p>
<p>“Good morning,” says a voice. “How is our Situation coming along?”</p>
<p>It’s a voice you don’t know, but you know it better than everyone else’s. It’s warm like metal left out in the sun, and something about it makes your vision slip sideways. Maybe that’s not just you, though, from how the figure doesn’t sound like they’re breathing. “Alright,” they say. “I mean, it’s great. Thank you.”</p>
<p>“Wonderful. We commend your hard work on such short notice,” says the voice.  “It’s such a Pity what happened to the backup machines. Wouldn’t you agree?”</p>
<p>“Of course, Ma’am.”</p>
<p>You don’t know the voice but you know it—know Her, <em> whatever—</em>which is wrong, you think. You’ve never been here before and you’ve been here your whole life. You—</p>
<p>“Of course,” She’s echoing. “And a Pity it happened on your daily Siesta, as well.”</p>
<p>“Of course.”</p>
<p>“If you had been on shift...” She makes a noise like a sigh, but it sounds wrong in a way you can’t explain. “We’re certain things would have been different.” The volume of Her voice keeps tangling things around in your head—the scent of burnt eggs and stale coffee, thoughts that get yanked away before you can even think them—and it hurts, grainy black-and-white overtaking the corners of your vision. “But <em> accidents </em> like that are a thing of the Past, wouldn’t you agree?”</p>
<p>“I—”</p>
<p>It <em> hurts</em>, and whatever stuff She’s talking about, you decide you can’t take it anymore. “suh’ up,” you mumble, with as much force as you can manage.</p>
<p>The figure makes a strangled noise. There’s a stretch of silence where you’re pretty sure the temperature drops like twenty degrees, by how you can feel the stuff plugged into your arm pumping like sludge.</p>
<p>Then, She <em> laughs</em>. Or, at least, She does something close to laughing; it’s bright and sharp like metal on glass, and you wince as all the room’s colors get scraped around, trying to keep remembering what She’s laughing at. “Oh, aren’t you clever,” She says. And then, you think, to the figure: "<em>Do </em>try not to break this one, will you, [employee_name]?”</p>
<p>“Understood,” they say stiffly.</p>
<p>“We’re not sure you do,” She says, a little lower. “We simply don’t have room in the Budget to make another - and without that, <em> someone </em> will have to be held accountable.”</p>
<p>There’s a longer pause this time. “I understand, Ma’am,” they say. “I’ll have him working again momentarily.” </p>
<p>“Now, that’s the kind of hard work We love to see,” She says brightly. “His first shift begins at dawn. Look forward to it! After all, this is only the Beginning.”</p>
<p>There’s a sound like someone clapping their hands; then the pulsing yellow light dims, and then it finally goes out. The figure slips the thing into their pocket and takes a deep, shuddering breath, then moves to get back to work.</p>
<p>There’s still something that won’t leave your head, though. “break wha’?” you ask.</p>
<p>Their eyes flick toward you for a fraction of a second, then away. “Break <em> who</em>,” they say. They say it like they’re correcting you, but you can’t remember whatever thing you just said; you feel like that’s not the important thing, though, like there’s something else you should be asking, like there’s something else you’re going to <em> forget—</em></p>
<p>“d‘d’i know you?” you blurt out. “like, before”</p>
<p>This time, they turn toward you, wearing an expression that for the life of you you can’t read. Then the flashing colors drain from the room, melting into the static that spreads from the corners of your vision, and you think, in that little moment where you’re not sure if your eyes are closed, that you hope they at least answered, even if you won’t remember.</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <em> there is fire, and there is a bright, bright, bright light. there is the echo of a slammed door and a new company tee clutched tight in your hands, and there are words melting together on your tablet’s screen. there is a stalled car in a costco parking lot and there is mint chocolate chip dripping onto your sweatpants as you smile across the table and there are fragments of eggshell sinking into the bloodied carpet beneath you, and there is a screen that is hundreds of screens, and the people behind it are crying out your name, and there is a fire </em>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>There are sticky notes all over your desk. It’s your desk, and some of them are stuck to your sweater from where you guess you fell asleep. You have no idea what you were doing before that, but you left your tablet unlocked, so it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out. And it feels like something keeps stabbing your brain, but you’re pretty sure you’ve worked through worse headaches—probably<em>—</em>and you’d done fine, right? You must have—everyone always said so.</p>
<p>There are a couple notes that don’t have your handwriting—there’s one on slightly-singed paper that says <em> For at least one week, the Commissioner is requi—</em>, before it’s scribbled out with permanent marker—but most of them are clearly yours, even if you can’t remember writing them. A shopping list; a note explaining what Birds do; some bullet points, hasty-looking, that begin at <em> that guy who got sunman off his parking ticket? </em> and end at <em> myself?</em>; a list of everyone’s favorite coffees—</p>
<p>—It’s your desk, and your pillow and bundle of blankets under the desk, and your chipped and cracked #1 Commissioner mug, and your pair of shaking hands. Obviously. Even if your eyesight’s still doubled up, and your head is still pounding, and there’s a tune in your ears that you can’t quite recall the words to.</p>
<p><em> stop worrying about it</em>, says the note in your hand, letters all scrunched up where you’d run out of space. <em> not your fault. you’ve got a job to do </em></p>
<p>So you do.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>park3r's trial notes are from <a href="http://www.theorangegroves.com/podcasts/argonauts/is-blaseball-an-arg-featuring-the-game-band">this interview</a>, which doesn't make them <i>canon</i> exactly but, like, close enough</p>
<p>if you'd like, you can find me on twitter @faeiri_tft, where i'll be lying completely flat on the ground</p></blockquote></div></div>
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